any
respectable man should prove his wealth by the number of his wives. We
must not forget that among most savages the moral conception of good
and evil are confounded with that of riches and poverty. In reality,
the supernumerary wives bought by a polygamist are simply slaves. His
power and authority do not easily allow jealousy among them;
nevertheless suicide sometimes occurs among the old wives who have
been passed over in favor of younger ones. Sometimes they kill their
children at the same time. Among the Indians of Terra del Fuego a hut
containing three or four women often resembles a battlefield. We have
already pointed out the way in which jealous Fiji women cut off the
noses of their rivals. Among the Islamites and Hindus intrigue and
jealousy are common with the women; the same in Abyssinia, among the
Hovas of Madagascar and the Zulus. The Hova term for polygamy is
_rafy_, which signifies adversary. To prevent the jealousy of his
wives the polygamous man often places them in separate houses; this is
common among the South American Indians.

In Colombia I made the acquaintance of a French explorer, Le Comte de
Brettes, who has studied closely the Goajires Indians by becoming
himself a member of the tribe. The country of the Goajires is a
peninsula of Colombia bordering on Venezuela. Polygamy among these
people is very interesting. When a young Goajire wishes to marry he
has to pay the bride's parents a number of cattle, but the consent of
the bride is necessary. Besides this the husband has to clear a
certain area of forest, plant vegetables and build a hut. He must then
make a present of all this to his wife and add to it the necessary
cattle. The wife thus becomes the legal proprietor of the house and
land, and it is she who rules over the domain. The husband only has
authority over the male children; but the wife is strictly enforced to
be faithful. If he wishes to marry a second wife, he is obliged to buy
her also and present her with similar property as the first, in
another district. The two wives can never dwell together in the same
house nor in the same district; each of them is thus a proprietor on
her own account. In this manner the different wives of a Goajire are
not only independent, but separated from each other and have no
communication; this excludes all jealousy, especially as these women
have a deep respect for the laws of their country. Under such
conditions polygamy can hardly extend to mo